Armor & Mobility

SEP-OCT 2016

Military magazines in the United States and Canada, covering Armor and Mobility, focuses on tactical vehicles, C4ISR, Special Operations Forces, latest soldier equipment, shelters, and key DoD programs

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 18 of 47

COMMAND POSTS OF THE FUTURE
By COL Mike Ernst, TRADOC Capability Manager, Mission Command/Command Posts
In the highly competitive and
dynamic operational environments
of the future, U.S. Army command
posts must facilitate the exercise
of mission command amongst
widely dispersed and decentralized
forces. Leaders will integrate and
synchronize their units' capabilities
with those of joint, inter-
organizational, and multinational
partners from command posts that
enable expeditionary maneuver.
Future command posts must be
agile and scalable and enable
uninterrupted mission command
functionality from home station,
enroute, and deployed nodes
by leveraging the concept of
reach. These concepts are captured in the
Mission Command Center of Excellence's
Command Post 2025 Concept of Operations,
1 September 2015, and the Concept for
the Army Command Post of 2040: Agile
and Expeditionary scheduled for publication
later this year. The Command Post 2040
Concept documents and Command Post
Strategy directly support the Department of
the Army-level Mission Command Network
Refinement effort through Focused Endstate
5, Agile and Expeditionary Command Posts.
Phased Development
The improvement and evolution of
command posts can be understood through
the lenses of near, mid, and far stages of
evolution. Near term improvements are
those that the Army will procure and field
between now and approximately 2025.
Examples of such improvements include
improved computer server infrastructure,
secure wireless capability, intelligent
power microgrid, improved tactical
satellite communications, leading-edge
web-based applications. Significant work
is also ongoing to determine formation
appropriate platforms to host on-the-move
mission command capability for armored,
infantry, and Stryker formations that
enable commanders and staff to utilize
beyond line of sight networked information
systems.
Mid-term improvements can generally be
categorized as those capabilities for which
the Army has a demonstrated requirement,
but either the concept or development
needs more analysis before the Army makes
a procurement decision. These capabilities
will generally be available between 2025
and 2035 and include such improvements
as a new command post support vehicle
that consolidates radios and networking
equipment, unified voice management
systems, next generation displays, and
web based applications to replace current
Army Battle Command Systems. Deployable
command posts will be connected to home
station mission command centers which
will enable commanders to tailor their
forces and reach forward and backward to
maximize capability while minimizing risk.
The future beyond 2035 is less well
known, and under significant study by orga-
nizations across the Army. As part of the
effort to achieve this vision for command
posts, Brigade Modernization Command
(BMC) and the Mission Command Center
of Excellence co-hosted a command post
summit at Fort Bliss, Texas from 14 to 17
June 2016. The forum brought together
members from across the Army includ-
ing those from Centers of Excellence in
Training and Doctrine Command, Army
Capability Integration Center, Brigade Mod-
ernization Command, Program Managers,
Communications-Electronic Research,
Development and Engineering
Center, and Department of the
Army Staff to develop, discuss,
and refine an Army command post
strategy and map out the way
ahead. The strategy seeks to pro-
vide a way forward taking into
account aspects of doctrine, orga-
nization, training, material, lead-
ership and education, personnel,
facilities, and policy (DOTMLPF-P)
as applicable to future command
posts.
Lessons Learned
Going Forward
Several key ideas either
emerged or were reinforced at the
summit including a central theme that the
command post is a socio-technical system,
the purpose of which is the meaningful
exchange of knowledge driven by the unit's
battle rhythm. The command post functions
and human interaction requirements
drive physical command post capabilities,
common operating environment
capabilities, and network capabilities.
In order to maximize these capabilities,
the Army must adopt a "weapon system
approach" to manage capabilities where
all aspects of DOTMLPF-P are integrated
and synchronized to maximize human,
procedural, and technical aspects of
command post operations.
As part of the summit, leaders
discussed experimentation and prototyping
opportunities nested with the strategy
for potential assessment during Network
Integration Exercises (NIE) and Army
Warfighting Assessments (AWA) held at
Fort Bliss, Texas and hosted by BMC. The
working groups within developed near-
term (FY 18-22), mid-term (FY 23-33) and
far-term (FY 34+) nominations of a total
of more than 20 different concepts for
assessment in NIEs/AWAs.
The summit group will refine the
command post strategy and way ahead,
and come back together in the fall of 2016
to develop the proposed implementation
plan for the Command Post Strategy.
Future tactical communications infrastructure will enable commanders to execute mission
command through agile, scalable, and tailorable command posts leveraging the DoD/Army
information network (MC CoE)
www.tacticaldefensemedia.com September/October 2016 | Armor & Mobility | 17
TRADOC FOCUS